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This blog serves my columns as an archive, a place to add footnotes,data sources and drafts of my weekly 550 word column for the Sky Hi News.(www.skyhidailynews.com) Often these drafts are posted on my Facebook page, The Muftic Forum.. To learn more about the posting subject, click onto the links at the end of the posting.Blog will be on vacation May 28-June 25 2018, with sporadic to no postings during that time.
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Saturday, November 23, 2013

The shouting match between left and right on health care
reform roars with the hyperventilating right calling anyone who supports
Obamacare ideologically insulting names. Just call me a pragmatist.

Earth to ideologues:
we have a problem here and whatever you call the solution, you want to unsolve
it by replacing Obamacarewith nothing
that protects consumers from bad insurer practices ormakes insurance affordable for the uninsured.

Leaveit up to the free
market system, you say. That is returning to the same that has refused coverage of so many for pre-existing conditions and screwed its customers lucky enough to even
get coverage. There is a good reason medical bills are the leading cause of
bankruptcy. Insurance hadsmall print clauses capping
dollar amounts of coverage or with impossible
to pay high deductible while raking off
more than 20% for overhead.

Legalized monopolies
extendedacross state lines s that make
true cross state free market competition a farce, permitting price and benefit collusion. The only free market
place, ironically,is in the Obamacare exchanges
where multiple carriers compete for your business with coverage and premiums compared side by side, and all meeting at
least minimum standards. See www.connectforhealthco.com

Heads up: your neighbors know we have a problem and need, want,
and appreciate a solution as polls running in this newspaper this month have
revealed .. More support Obamacare than want to repeal it; only 41% responding
had employer provided insurance.Surveys
taken by Colorado Health Institute 2013 confirm the similar numbers: nearly 20% of your Grand County neighbors do not have health
insurance, 82% because of cost , and an additional13% are underinsured.

Why?.In order to
make a living in this county many must have one day job and two part time table
waiting, drywall, ski instructor ,
maintenance, hamburger flipping jobs. Few
employers of such have ever provided insurance.

The newest fear hyping prediction from the right is that no young people will sign up so that only
the sick and infirm with pre-existing conditions will be left in the insurance
pool, causing Obama to self destruct. That did not happen in Massachusetts , the
only testing grounds for a plan similar to Obamacare. The young and healthy had more
sense than what the old folks comfy with insurance credit them with.It is not just the fines that got them into
the system: though losing 1% or $95 of
your income this year andmuch more in
future years with no insurance to show
for it, too, is no joke. What gets them
into the system is the ability to afford insurance thanks to subsidies or to
qualify for the expanded free Medicaid or for
those under 30 to get cheap catastrophic insurance.

Bike crashes and ski wipeouts happenThe cheapest knee replacement, per recent Aspen
Times and Vail Daily surveys , costs $55 thousand in Denver. Either you have cash, good credit, or bankruptcy.

Young people are able to stay on their parents’ insurance
policy until they are 26, thanks to Obamacare. An unemployed 19 year oldI know well tore his acl/ ncl and chipped a
bone and his parents said that since
Obamacare let him stay on his parents
insurance, the coverage saved $40
thousand out of pocket.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

In the GOP’swar on
Obamacare, Republicans are taking a
riskif they rely on anti Obamacare
messagesin the November2014 midterms. The issues today will not be the same a year from now. There is time for asignificant number of their voters to realize
while Republicans want Obamacare to fail, they also will begin to realize that
the GOP also wants them to fail to be able to get good affordable insurance.

While the GOP has had a field day attacking the administration
for thebotched web site rollout and shaming the President’s failure to live up
to his alleged “promise” to allow “all to keep their insurance if they liked it”,these are short term jolts.A year from now the federalweb site will have beenup and running formonths. .Enough customers will have signed up for Obamacareby mid term elections in 2014to have heard good thingsfrom friends and family andrealize the GOP fear hyping predictions weremore hot air than not.After four years of trying, the GOP
stillwould not be able to propose a comparable alternativeand have concludedthat it is political suicide to repealbenefits many alreadyenjoyed.

The President’s
administrative fix , allowing consumers to keep their substandard policies for
a year and to allow insurers to sell substandard plans to existing customers, takes the wind out of the sails of that issue .
All holders of cancelled policies willhave had a year’s chance to seek better, cheaper policies.In fact, in Colorado ( www.connectforhealthco.com )and in
fourteen other states, they have the opportunity now to shop in the state run exchanges that are
functioning well.

The President’s fix shovesthe responsibility to reinstate cancelled policies to the insurers and
the state insurance commissioners. However,as insurance executives complain
about administrative hardships and a few state insurance commissioners sided with insurers, other commissioners,
including Colorado’s, announced they would cooperate with Obama’s plan.

During the shaping and passage of the health reform law, President Obama had studiously avoided bad
mouthing insurance companies whose anti consumer practices were the reasons for the reform law in the first
place..He needed their participation in
the exchanges. But Democrats in Congress feel no constraints. Democrats have
already indicated they will go on the
offensive, threatening to hold insurers’ feet to the fire for excessive rate increases in advance of the
health care law taking effect as a way to pressure them to go along with the
President’s “fix”.

The GOP overreached and lost a chance to override a veto
promised by the President. SomeDemocratic members of the Housefacing re-election in unsafe seats, voted for
a Republican bill, but not enough of themto make the bill veto proof.In
addition to allowing individual policy holders to keep their old policies,the GOPproposed that even new customers could buy substandard policies .This was a subtle time bomb. It would cancel out Obamacare’s purpose to protect consumers from
insurer’s unfair practices and divert the healthy from buying insurance through
the exchanges, undermining the law’s
financial soundness that depends on a diverse pool of healthy young and
others that are all paying in.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Twisted grammar and ever changing vocabulary are the stuff of which the continuing GOP crusade to destroy
Obamacare is made and the Democrats have
their stumbles, too.The anti Obamacare
talking points get the present tense of verb mixed up with future tense.Some words, like “replace” disappear from the talking points, new ones emerge like “repair”.
Old words, like “lie” get new
definitions.

One GOP approach is toturn present tense into a future
certainty. The lines go like this.” No
one has signed up for Obamacare now, they will not do it later”, ignoring that.
a working web site andpenalties have
not even kicked in yet..Another line is.. “ No young, healthy will sign up so
it will collapse of its own weight”, though 98% are insured in Massachusetts, the state system after which
Obamacare was patterned. If “the tech surge” succeeds in fixing the web
site , their verb tense will become past perfect.

Since Rep. Joe WilsoninterruptedPresidentObama’s 2009 State of the Union speech with,
“You lie”, “lie” has also become a
standard GOP phrase.Mitt Romney,
interviewed on NBC’SMeet the PressNov. 3, used the less inflammatorywords,”fundamental dishonesty” instead of “you lie”, but the meaning was the
same.

When is a “lie” a lie ?When it is true at the time when it is told but it is not true now?That seems to be howthe GOP defines it. When Pres. Obama made his
statements before mid March 2010 when the law was passed it was true at that
time, that” if you liked your insurance,you could keep it”. Not explained then ,if the individual insurance
you had then is not the one you have now or your policy terms changed in the
meantimeand it does not meet new standards,
you may have to get a newpolicy..Pres. Obama’ssin, for which he apologized November 7
wasnot qualifying his statement with
the adjective“most”will keep their insurance, and then doing
nothing to clarifythen or later.

The President has
promised to fix the problem for those who have hardships because of the
cancellations. What would happen
without changes ? All would get better, more comprehensive insurance, about half would even qualify for a subsidy and pay less andothers would pay more. It is the
latter the President hints he will take administrative action to help.

In the Nov. 3 interview, Gov. Romney did adda new word to ourhealth care reformvocabulary: “repair” . “Repair” should not mean a “fundamental change”.

“Repeal and defund”, the “throw the baby out with the
bathwater” approach, will be onlya whisper by March 31, 2014 when many have signed up. Taking away better understood and valued benefits from so many will be a tough sell . “Delay”
will still be on the tips of some tongues, but expect no action unless the federal web
site is not “repaired” by the end of November.There is still plenty of time between December 1 and before the end of March to sign up customers.

“Replace” used to be coupled with the word “repeal”, but
it has disappeared from the GOP lexicon.Nothing Republicans ever proposed
in the past four years “replaced” what
Obamacare offers: insuring 30 million uninsured and protecting consumers ,
while providinga plan to pay for it without adding to the deficit.

About Me

Felicia Muftic is a political columnist with the Sky Hi Daily News, Grand County, Colorado. She writes on current events from a pragmatic, fact based, reasoned perspective.
Felicia has nearly 50 years of involvement in politics, finance,and consumer affairs as either a fly on the wall in international, national, state and local levels or a participant.
Parallel to all of this is intense involvement for over 50 years in the the political process, serving in both cabinet and staff in the administration of Mayor Federico Pena . Partially educated in Europe and married to physician-refugee from the Balkans, her interests are not confined to US domestic problems, but she also has a world view and experiences which are often reflected in her columns.
Felicia Muftic es un columnista político del diario Sky News Hola, Grand County, Colorado. Felicia tiene casi 50 años de participación en la política, las finanzas y de asuntos del consumidor, ya sea como una mosca en la pared en la internacional, nacional, estatal y local o de un participante. Para más información, visite www.mufticforum.com